First Thirty: Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy
UK-based developer Eurocom has been around for a little while, producing a number of titles. Most recently, they are probably best known for last year’s Quantum of Solace game on PS2. In 2005 they made the ambitious Batman Begins games on all platforms. Skipping over a number of other licensed titles, you come to what appears to be Eurocom’s only original IP, 2003′s Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy.
Sphinx is an Egyptian-themed action-adventure game, something most Nintendo players will recognize as a kind of Zelda clone, but of course Sony kids might consider it more of a Jak and Daxter kind of thing. Those of you on Microsoft’s platforms might categorize it as “not Halo,” or something. You play as Sphinx, who has a tail. Really.
I ordered the game on Goozex after hearing IGN’s Matt Cassamassina recommend it in a podcast a few weeks ago. I remembered him mentioning it before, and figured since he seems to love the same games I do (like Metroid Prime and Beyond Good and Evil) I’d give it a go at a mere 100 Goozex points. While I agree with Matt that the game is nicely put together and boasts some impressive innovations, I have to wonder where they put the difficulty slider. I find the platforming very difficult and the fact that save points don’t restore your health pretty troubling. But let me get back to the good.
The visuals in the game are crisp and very appealing. I have to admit that while I’m accustomed to a certain visual quality in Wii games and don’t expect much, I tend to be shocked when I put in Gamecube games and they look… well, about the same. Not only does Sphinx look good, but the menu sports something I’ve only seen once before in a Gamecube game, a widescreen mode. What really makes the game pop visually is the animation. It looks like everything is motion captured, and it’s most apparent in Sphinx himself. While I see this kind of detailed motion in Prince of Persia on PS3, I did not see it last generation except in Soul Calibur II.
The music is appropriately epic, though most of it that I’ve heard has been in the “making of” video you can find from the main menu under “options.” This is a platformer with lots of jumping and climbing, but it’s also a puzzle-heavy title, and the puzzles are pretty original in my experience. For example, the first thing you’ll find yourself doing is picking up rocks and throwing them at trees to collect coconuts. Then you’re using them to pay a monster to spit you to the next part of the game. Then you’re running through a group of exploding flowers, trying to get them to go off all at the same time. Then you’re using a special ability to run on lava and steam jets. Then you’re trying to sneak past some nervous-looking eyeball things that close the door when they see you.
I’m not sure if this density of tasks is only a kind of tutorial or if the whole game will be like this, but it’s done a good job of testing me so far. So good a job, in fact, that I want a difficulty slider. I mentioned this as a Zelda clone, and much like with Zelda, you start with very little life and when you run out, it’s Game Over. I found myself very frustrated when I had to start the game over at the beginning, complete with mandatory cutscenes, because the first save point is surprisingly far into the game. This was made more troubling when I found out that saving your game also saves your life meter, so I have my game saved with just a sliver of life left and have to navigate the next section of the game with no room for error. It’s hard to want to start the game up again because of this.
I had a lot of trouble adjusting to the controls. Jumping is analog, so you need to hold down the button longer to jump further, but it doesn’t seem like a huge difference in distance. That may be just that I was already holding down the button when jumping before it told me I could. Also, Sphinx runs pretty fast compared to most platformer heroes I know such as Mario and Link. His turning radius is pretty broad as a result, and I found myself careening off ledges for a little bit, though thankfully he’ll grab said ledges neatly. The context-sensitive button map in the upper right, like in Zelda or Beyond Good and Evil, helps out a lot. That is, when it’s correct. If you’re holding a rock, the map will tell you pressing Y will drop it and B will throw it. That’s an oversimplification, because either B or Y will drop the rock if you’re not running when you press it.
I get the early impression that this is a game I will like a lot once I get the hang of it. The “making of” video showed Sphinx with a sword and a number of other skills I don’t currently have, so it looks like a better equipped Sphinx may be a lot more fun than one that’s chucking rocks at coconut trees to feed lava monsters. In the mean time, I’m looking forward to something along the lines of a heart container.
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy at Eurocom
Tags: eurocom, first thirty, sphinx and the cursed mummy, thq
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Sounds like a nice, solid platformer to me, which I definitely appreciate. The platforming genre has dramatically declined since the NES era. It's sad that a genre that brought us into gaming is slowly being weeded out.
I think it's a lack of creativity. If you look at the modern blockbuster platformers, you'll see Super Mario Galaxy and look how far they had to go to innovate the genre. They may have knocked it out of the park (I certainly think so) but how many studios in the world can compete in this area with Miyamoto and NOJ? I'd consider Prince of Persia a platformer, but the game's innovation is not in its platforming, but in its world structure, combat system, and its commitment to the narrative.
It will be a sad, sad, SAD day when Miyamoto passes because I'm afraid no one will be able to do the Mario series justice after all his accomplishments/innovations. There's just something about Mario games that make you smile, and it's as if you can't be made while you're playing one…until there's a really frustrating star that you can't get, and you start to rip your hair out, haha.
Do stick with it! You are in the tutorial right now, and honestly, the tutorial is kind of slow and awkward. Once you get into the “real” part of the game, it opens up considerably, and becomes more free-roaming, like Zelda games. And having the sword helps.
As for “task density,” well, you ain't seen nothin' yet. The titular Cursed Mummy has his own separate sections in the game, and they contain some of the most involved puzzles I've ever seen in a game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you. A lot of them require real planning to solve; you have to figure out what tasks to do in what order to get to where you need to go. And there's frequently a ton of them to tackle at once–do I go into this water-filled room first, or this one with the odd-looking turbine? What do I do about these switches or these platforms?
It is a pity the platforming is so awkward, then. And the difficulty in the early stages–yikes! I think you get to somewhere like halfway through the game before you finally get your second health bonus, so you have more than four health icons. Dodging enemies is difficult too. Even once you get health upgrades, the game loves coming up with ways to whittle it down.
In spite of its flaws, though, I still like it. I bought it used on a whim and was extremely pleased to find I had stumbled onto a hidden trease.
I saw this game in action on a friend's Xbox years ago and felt it looked pretty good. He told me the puzzles were overall fun, and I liked the cartoony graphics. I did watch him die four or five times on a very hard platforming section and that pretty much told me everything I needed to know: not for me.
Everyone should know about this game, it's a monstrously underrated masterpiece of an action-adventure game that flew under the radar. If you ever see Sphinx on the shelves, you'll regret not picking it up.